Software applications exchange data in a variety of formats. Two of the more prevalent formats are the tagged hierarchical data format and the rectangular data format. Tagged hierarchical data formats, such as the extensible Markup Language (XML) format, are becoming increasingly popular as they provide a useful data exchange medium for Internet software applications. Rectangular data formats are also widely used as their tabular format is the cornerstone of most database systems.
Incompatibility difficulties arise when software systems using different formats seek to exchange data. The present invention overcomes such difficulties and others by providing a computer-implemented system and method for tagged data and rectangular data conversions. The system and method receive tagged input data that is in a non-rectangular format and that uses a hierarchical arrangement of tags to indicate data relationships. Data directives are used to parse the tagged input data. The data directives indicate which tags in the hierarchical arrangement of tags are to form which columns in the rectangular formatted data output. The rectangular formatted data output is generated based upon the parsed tagged input data. Data directives may also be used to convert rectangular data into a tagged data format.